Chris Blumer chats to Sports Broadcaster Pat Murphy about his show at Ludlow Assembly Assembly Rooms on July 5th

A Sunshine Radio Podcast

Friday, 14 June 2024 - 11 minutes

Three national broadcasters with over 150 years’ experience between them will be joining forces to share the highs and lows from their illustrious careers. Jim Rosenthal, Nick Owen and Pat Murphy first worked together 50 years ago on BBC Radio Birmingham and, throughout their stellar careers, have remained firm friends, swapping tales over many a long lunch. Now they’re going to share many of them…..

They have attended many of the world’s most prestigious sporting events – from Ashes battles, Olympics, Rugby and Football World Cups, countless Motor Racing Grand Prix and memorable boxing nights. Nick has also carved out an impressive career in news, current affairs and entertainment, interviewing 7 Prime Ministers and,among others, Paul McCartney, George Michael, Elton John and the Bee Gees, while on the breakfast TV sofa.
The anecdotes from Jim, Nick and Pat aren’t already known from podcasts or autobiographies. They were there when sporting history was being made and their tales are specific to them, freshly-minted, not recycled tales that are now familiar to many audiences.
Jim Rosenthal worked on 153 Grand Prix for ITV Sport, presenting its coverage for over a decade. Also for ITV, he reported and presented on 8 football World Cups and presented 3 Rugby Union World Cups, including England’s historic victory in the Final against Australia in 2003.
For more than a decade, he was ITV’s presenter of their boxing coverage, during a Golden Age of British boxing, featuring the likes of Chris Eubank, Nigel Benn and Amir Khan – when TV audiences for live Fights soared past 10 million.
When covering one of Muhammad Ali’s world title fights for BBC Radio, he was actually invited to the great man’s home for dinner!
Nick Owen has just completed 25 years of presenting BBC TV’s Midlands Today. He is now fully restored to health, having successfully overcome prostate cancer, in the process raising greater awareness of the disease with a series of emotional interviews.
After cutting his teeth presenting sport on the old ATV/Central News Programme, Nick was one of the first faces on ITV’s Breakfast Show and within two months had formed an enduring presenting partnership with Anne Diamond, which is widely credited with saving the programme. They worked together for the next four years and then, a decade later, they clocked up 600 live apperarances from BBC Pebble Mill, fronting Good Morning with Anne and Nick.
For ITV Sport, Nick presented the Olympics coverage in 1988 and the Football World Cup from Italy in 1992, as well as commentating during the 1994 World Cup.
He was chairman of Luton Town Football Club for almost a decade, forging a close friendship with an even more famous Luton supporter – Eric Morecambe. In fact Nick’s ringtone on his mobile is the instantly recognisable ‘Give Me Sunshine’, the Morecambe and Wise signature tune.
Pat Murphy is the longest-serving contributor to BBC Radio’s Sports Report on Saturday afternoons, having clocked up more than 40 years on that historic programme, the longest-running radio sports show in the world.
He has written over 40 sports books, including acclaimed biographies of Ian Botham and Brian Clough. Pat has also collaborated on books with the likes of Imran Khan, Viv Richards, Andrew Flintoff, Graham Gooch, Bob Willis and Alec Stewart. His latest book is the Official History of Sports Report.
Pat specialises in reporting on cricket and football – covering the Midlands clubs – and he has been on 18 England tours around the world. He was there when England retained the Ashes in Melbourne in 1986 and regained them in 2005, at the Oval. He also accompanied Ian Botham on many of his charity walks to raise funds for Leukaemia Research and jousted many times in interviews with the legendary Brian Clough.
The format for the evening is simple : three friends over many decades pulling out the plums from their vast experience. Three microphones, three chairs. And, via some roving mics, as many questions as we can take from the audience….